Mother Nature's Daughter
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "She wasn't lonely, she told herself. She was happy with only plants for company." Movie-verse: My take on Fiona's backstory and how she came to live with Miss Peregrine.
1. Running

I loved all the kids at Miss Peregrine's, but Fiona was my favorite, and I wanted to see more of her, so here's my take on her pre-loop life. There will be Fiona/Miss P bonding and some Fiona/Hugh. Tagged to the movie, AU to the books.

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Sometimes, Fiona thought things had been _easier_ when the monster was chasing her.

For several days after the crash, the monster had hunted her through the forest. She couldn't _see_ the monster – it was invisible, which made it even scarier – but she knew when it was after her from how it displaced the plants. She heard the leaves and twigs being crushed under its feet, and she saw the bushes and tree branches being shoved suddenly out of its way, and that's how she knew when it was time to run. The plants were her friends, and they always warned her. That was why she had to stay in the forest forever. In an open space, the monster would be able to sneak up on her.

But Fiona was free of the monster now... she _hoped_. She hadn't heard it since last week. Luckily, it had just rained, and she could see its footprints approaching clearly in the muddy earth, coming closer and closer. She had forced herself to stand and watch them, not to run away, and when its prints appeared beside a tree, she asked a thick branch to burst out of it suddenly. She heard it strike the monster, a _thwack_ of wood against soft flesh that made her cringe, and then the monster fell to the ground with a _thud_ so loud that it echoed through the forest.

Fiona had turned and run away then. She ran and ran, deep into the dark forest, and she asked tall, thick, thorny bushes to spring up like sentinels behind her and guard her way, and she asked roses to grow and bloom and hide her scent. She hadn't heard any of the monster's noises since then.

So she was safe now... but she hadn't expected that to be _worse_ than being hunted. When the monster had been after her, she was always on alert, always busy thinking about how to get away and how to survive. When she didn't have to worry about that, her mind could drift back to the crash. When she didn't have to listen for the monster's footsteps, she could hear again the screeching tires and breaking glass.

Walking back from the creek to her campsite, the brown-green of the forest, Fiona's favorite color, blurred as tears stung her eyes and the memory came back in full.

She and Daddy had been coming back from a Sunday drive. Daddy always liked to go for a drive through the countryside on Sunday afternoons. He and Fiona had been on the road beside the lake, almost back to Trawsfynydd, when something smashed the motor-car off the road and into a deep ditch. They rolled over once, twice, then Fiona lost count. Daddy shouted her name, then the car lurched and he banged his head hard on the ceiling, and there was so much blood that Fiona had to close her eyes.

The monster had made the crash. Fiona understood that now. Dazed and bruised in the smashed remains of their overturned car in the ditch, with Daddy slumped bloody and motionless over the steering wheel, she had heard the monster's angry, animal hissing. It grunted and banged on the car, and something long and slimy, like a tentacle, had slithered in the broken window and tried to wrap itself around Fiona's arm. She tried to pry it off, but then she felt another one grab at her free arm. She screamed for Daddy to help her, but he didn't move, didn't answer her, and Fiona felt like one of those awful tentacles had reached inside her chest and ripped her heart in two.

Fiona still didn't know how she did it, but somehow, she had twisted free of the thing trying to grab her, the thing that she couldn't see, squirmed out of the car, and climbed from the ditch. She didn't run back to Trawsfynydd, but away from it. She didn't want help from people, but from plants. She ran to the place that she loved most in the world, the thick forest that surrounded the village. When she reached the tree-line, the trunks and branches around her felt like an embrace, but still, she didn't slow down. She ran and ran, heartbroken and terrified and confused, and she didn't stop running for a long time.

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Please review if you'd like to see more! I've never written for this fandom before, so I would love feedback.


	2. Lost

Thanks so much to everyone who left reviews on Chapter 1! Your feedback is so encouraging.

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Since she'd thrown the monster off her track, Fiona had stopped running and built a campsite for herself in the forest. It was perfectly comfortable. She asked branches to grow from an oak tree at a straight, wide angle to the ground, just like a tent. She asked soft grass to grow beneath it, as plush as a mattress. She slept there and woke up at dawn every morning, when the birds began to sing.

Every morning, right after she awoke, Fiona crawled out from under her tent of tree branches and asked a different sort of climbing flower to grow over them. Flowers had always been easy for her, and growing them seemed to soothe her broken heart. Her favorites were wisteria, which she grew in great purple clumps that looked like grapes, and delicate, star-shaped white jasmine. But she grew all sorts of flowers as the days went on – trumpet vines and sweet honeysuckle and deep blue morning-glories. Every night, before she went to bed, she grew lavender all around her tent. The scent of it helped her sleep, and sleeping was hard for her now.

Growing food was easy for her, though. She missed eating bread and meat, but she could grow any sort of vegetable – potatoes, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, squash, carrots, peppers – with chives or basil to flavor them and strawberries or blackberries for dessert. Asking trees to grow was trickier for her, but after spending a day on it, she had a small apple tree. She asked thick, thorny holly bushes to grow in a border around her campsite, in case the monster ever tried to come after her again. She asked them to spring apart in an arch just her size whenever she went to the creek for water.

Living in the forest was almost _too_ easy. It left her with too much time to despair over what to do next. Daddy was _dead_. Fiona would never see him again, and she had long jags of crying at least once a day. Curled up on the ground or sitting in a tree, she cried and cried until she felt empty and almost dead herself. Being sad over Daddy was worse than being scared of the monster, and sometimes, Fiona wished that it was still hunting her.

Daddy was the only one who knew about Fiona's powers over plants. He didn't know _how_ she could do it any more than she did, and though he told her to keep it a secret, he never made her feel ashamed or different. He told Fiona once that his grandparents had died during a terrible famine in Ireland years ago, "so you'll never hear me complaining that my girl can grow food like you can," he'd said proudly, kissing her nose.

Daddy had immigrated alone from Ireland to Wales when he was a young man, and Fiona's mother had died giving birth to her, so it had always been just the two of them. She had no other family that she knew of, and no friends. The other children in Trawsfynydd teased her for talking to plants. What would they happen if they ever saw how she could make them grow? People would do much worse than tease her then.

Fiona wasn't sure how long it had been since the crash – a few weeks, perhaps? In all that time, she hadn't seen a single other person, except once last week, when she went for a long walk away from her campsite, trying to tire herself into a good night's sleep. She accidentally came too close to the edge of the forest, and a strange man spied her through the trees.

"Eh, lass, what you doin' way out here?" he'd called. He took a step towards her, but she asked a strong spinach vine to shoot up at his feet and wrap around his ankle, and then she turned and fled, deep into the woods again.

Every night, as Fiona lay in her tent, she tossed and turned for a long time. How much longer could she go on living like this, alone in the woods? What if she got hurt or fell sick? But she couldn't go back to Trawsfynydd. She couldn't go back to living among people. What if the monster came after her again? If she told people that some huge, invisible monster-beast was after her, they would take her for a lunatic, and perhaps lock her away in an asylum. Fiona would rather take her chances with the monster than be locked indoors, away from growing things.

Now, the forest was getting darker as afternoon turned to evening, and Fiona dreaded the thought of another sleepless night. As she did every day, she began to climb the oak tree that her tent grew from. She had asked straight, even branches to grow all the way up the tree, and every evening, she climbed up to the top to watch the sunset over the forest. The bark was rough and reassuring under her hands. _She_ wasn't lonely, she told herself, as she began to climb. No, she was _happy_ living here in the forest. She was h –

But before she had climbed very high, a large bird – a falcon – suddenly landed on the branch close beside her. Fiona gasped and backed away a bit. Falcons never landed so close to people, and there was something strange about how it looked at her...

Suddenly, the falcon spread its wings again and swooped to the ground. Without thinking, Fiona called, "Wait!" and scrambled down after it. She heard it land, but when she jumped down from the last branch and looked around, there was no bird – but a strange woman. She wore a dark blue dress, the same color of the falcon's feathers, and she smiled at Fiona.

"Hello, Fiona," the woman said.


	3. Found

This fandom has really grabbed ahold of my muse. I've watched the movie about twelve times now, and I'm halfway through the first book. I hope you'll all enjoy Chapter 3!

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Fiona tried to say _hello_ back, but she was too surprised. She just stood there and stared. But the woman didn't seem to mind. She stepped closer to Fiona and went on, still smiling, "My name is Miss Peregrine. I – "

But she stopped, and her smile disappeared into a concerned frown. "Oh dear, you've cut your arm," she said, gently taking Fiona's arm and holding it up. Only then did Fiona notice the bleeding scrape on her forearm. She had hurried down from the tree so quickly that she skinned her arm on the bark.

"I shouldn't have dropped down on you like that while you were in the tree," Miss Peregrine said, patting Fiona's shoulder. "I'm sorry if I startled you. Come let me clean that scrape up for you. The creek is this way, isn't it?" And with one hand on Fiona's back and one hand holding hers, she led her away from her campsite. She didn't slow down as they approached the border of holly bushes. She simply said, "Can you make them part wide enough for both of us?"

Fiona was still too surprised to even nod, but inside her head, she asked the bushes to spring apart, and they did, closing up again neatly after she and Miss Peregrine had passed through.

Miss Peregrine smiled at her. "I'm quite impressed, Fiona. You have fine control over your Peculiarity for a child your age."

Fiona found her voice at least. "My... my what?" she managed to ask.

"Your Peculiarity," Miss Peregrine explained. "That's what your power over plants is called. My Peculiarity is that I can turn into a bird, as you've already seen."

They had reached the creek now, and Fiona obediently sat down a rock beside it and held out her hurt arm. Miss Peregrine's fingernails were painted black, long and sharp like falcon talons, but her hands were gentle as she washed out the cut on Fiona's arm. Then she pulled a bandage from her pocket, saying, "Luckily, when you take care of as many children as I do, you learn to keep a few things on you."

She noticed Fiona's curious expression and went on as she carefully bandaged her arm. "That's why I've come to fetch you, Fiona. Have you heard of Cairnholm?" Fiona shook her head. "It's a small island off the coast – not far from here, in fact. I'm the headmistress of a home for Peculiar children there."

 _Peculiar children_? Were there other children who could do what she did? For a moment, she was too shocked to speak, then she asked, "You-you mean... I'm not the only one?"

"Well, you may be the only Peculiar who has the ability to control plants. I haven't yet met another who can do that. But my children all do different things. I have one little girl, Claire, younger than you, who has a second mouth on the back of her head."

Fiona tried to imagine that. Having a second mouth didn't sound very useful. Turning into a bird might be fun, but Fiona wouldn't trade her gardening powers for anything. She brushed one hand over the kingcups that grew along the creek and thought, _I'm glad you're mine_.

Miss Peregrine finished bandaging her arm and began to pick leaves out of Fiona's hair. Fiona would've felt embarrassed – she hadn't paid any attention to her appearance since she'd been living in the forest, and she was filthy – but after being alone for so long, she rather liked the attention.

"Another of my children is boy named Horace," Miss Peregrine added. "He has prophetic dreams, about things that are going to happen. He had one about you, and that was how I knew your name and where to find you."

It hadn't occurred to Fiona to wonder about that.

Miss Peregrine sat down beside Fiona on the rock. She wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. Her voice grew serious. "Horace told me you had to fight off a Hollow by yourself."

"A Hollow?" Fiona asked.

"That's the name of the monster you couldn't see. I'm so sorry you had to go through that alone, Fiona. I wish I could've found you sooner." She looked troubled, and Fiona could tell that this strange woman, who had only just met her, already saw Fiona as her responsibility, as if she was already another one of her children. Fiona didn't mind the idea. She didn't want to admit it, but she was tired of taking care of herself; she wanted someone else taking care of her again. And she'd never had a mother...

"There are more Hollows out there, I'm afraid," Miss Peregrine said, interrupting her thoughts, "and there can be... other dangers for Peculiars, too."

Fiona felt a twinge of fear. "Like what?"

"Humans can be dangerous to us sometimes," Miss Peregrine answered, and Fiona remembered how the other children teased her. "Sometimes they're afraid of us. Claire, the little girl I told you about, has been with me since she was a baby. She was abandoned at birth because of her Peculiarity. If you come home with me, you won't have to hide any more, and I can keep you safe from the Hollows."

Fiona didn't need to think about it. She smiled at Miss Peregrine and slipped her hand into hers.

But as they started out of the forest, Fiona felt tears burn her eyes. In the forest, it was easy to pretend that she was just away on a camping trip, and that Daddy was still alive, waiting for her back at home. Leaving here made her realize that he was really gone for good, forever, that she was never going back to their old home, that her life would never be the same. The tears were streaming down her face now, and she ducked her head and tried to make them stop. She didn't want Miss Peregrine to think that she was ungrateful.

But Miss Peregrine didn't try to make her stop crying. When she saw Fiona's tears, she crouched down to her level and gently gathered the girl into her arms. Fiona clung to her as if her life depended on it, sobbing against her shoulder. "I know," Miss Peregrine whispered, rocking her back and forth a bit, "I know it's been hard for you."

It wasn't the first time since Daddy's death that Fiona had cried, but it _felt_ like it, because it was the first time that someone was there to comfort her. Miss Peregrine held her for a long time, stroking her hair and murmuring, "You poor thing."

And Fiona felt like that was all she had ever wanted to hear.


	4. Home

This chapter was difficult to write, but I hope you'll enjoy it.

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Miss Peregrine told Fiona about her children's home while they rode out to the island on the ferry that night. There were twelve children there already, each with a different peculiarity; two of them, Victor and Bronwyn, were brother and sister, and they both had superhuman strength. Sometimes, the children called her _Miss P_. They all lived together in a lovely house overlooking the sea, and there was a garden big enough for both flowers and vegetables.

"It'll be nice to have a gardener to manage it for a change," Miss Peregrine smiled, as they stood at the railing of the ferry. She stroked Fiona's hair, then checked the gold pocket watch that she wore at her waist. In the darkness, Fiona could just see the island ahead, a large black spot on the dark blue sea, and she tried to imagine what the house would look like. She didn't know which would be nicer – having twelve other children to play with, children who would never tease her for being different, or having a big garden all to herself, or finding out, at last, what it was like to have a mother.

After the ferry landed, they rode up from the harbor to the house in a horse and cart. But as they grew closer to her new home, Fiona's excitement gave way to nerves. What if the Peculiar children weren't any nicer than ordinary children? What if she didn't like it here? She would've bitten her nails, but she hadn't bathed the entire time she'd been living in the forest, and her hands were covered in grime. Miss Peregrine had taken the leaves out of her hair, but the rest of her was still filthy. She didn't want the other children to see her for the first time looking like this.

When they turned a corner in the road and the house came into view, Fiona got so nervous that, not knowing what else to do, she laid down across the seat and pretended to be asleep. Miss Peregrine had to know that she was only pretending, but she didn't make her get up when she stopped the horse in front of the house. She simply picked Fiona up and climbed down out of the cart with her. Fiona laid her head against Miss Peregrine's shoulder and kept pretending to be asleep, but she was surprised. Miss Peregrine was slender, but she must be stronger than she looked.

Fiona was so nervous that her heart hammered in her chest. She curled her head closer to Miss Peregrine's neck, trying to hide herself. She heard the hollow _click_ of Miss Peregrine's shoes on the front steps, the heavy _click_ of the front door opening, then voices.

"You're back!" an older boy's voice exclaimed immediately. He sounded friendly. Fiona kept her eyes closed and didn't move, but she listened closely.

"Yes, we're back, Abe," Miss Peregrine answered softly, "but she's sleeping, so keep your voice down."

A flurry of children's voices, all excitedly whispering together, then another boy: "Is that her? Is that the new one?"

"This is Fiona, yes." Miss Peregrine put one hand on Fiona's back, and she felt better. "You'll all meet her tomorrow."

A chorus of disappointed _aww_ 's. "But Miss Peregrine, look, we made her a sign." A younger girl: "And _I_ drew the flowers, because flowers are her Peculiarity."

"That was very thoughtful of you, children. You can show it to her tomorrow. Now, Bronwyn, Claire, shouldn't you two have gone to bed seventeen minutes ago?"

An older girl: "I offered to tuck them in, Miss Peregrine, but they only wanted you."

"Well, you girls go get settled in, and I'll be along soon."

Fiona felt Miss Peregrine carrying her deeper into the house, up a flight of stairs, and the other children's voices faded. Her heartbeat relaxed, now that it was just her and Miss Peregrine again.

"They're very eager to meet you, but I think you've had enough for one day," Miss Peregrine said softly. She brought Fiona to her own room. "You can sleep with me for tonight, and tomorrow, we'll get you settled into a nice room of your own." She set Fiona down on her bed, even though she was still filthy. Then she opened the door to the connected bathroom and turned on the hot water tap in the bathtub, fetched fluffy towels from a cupboard and a blue nightgown from a wardrobe. "Emma shortened the hem of one of her old nightgowns to fit you."

Fiona listened and nodded while her eyes wandered the room. They settled on a large world map over the desk, where Miss Peregrine had written dots and dates. In the southern United States was a spot marked _Sept. 11, 1929_ – what could that mean?

Miss Peregrine told her to take a nice hot bath while she went to tuck in Claire and Bronwyn, and Fiona did. She had missed bathing while she'd been in the forest. She peeled off her dirty, tattered clothes and sank slowly into the hot water. The filth fairly floated off her. She had missed sleeping in a real bed too, and she tried to stay awake and enjoy it, but when Miss Peregrine came back to tuck her in, she could barely keep her eyes open.

In one corner of Miss Peregrine's room was a large birdhouse with a roosting-pole. "Do you sleep as a bird sometimes?" she asked, yawning – but she was asleep before she could hear the answer, and that night, for the first time since the crash, Fiona slept peacefully.


	5. New

The next morning, Fiona washed her face and brushed and braided her hair into two long pigtails. She looked in the mirror and smiled at herself. She didn't look like the grubby orphan girl that Miss Peregrine had found in the woods. She felt brand new, and she looked like herself again, like her father's daughter – Mother Nature's Daughter, Daddy used to call her sometimes.

A good night's sleep had done wonders for Fiona, and she was ravenously hungry for the first time since the crash. But downstairs, she hesitated outside the breakfast room and peeked around the doorway. The other children were already there, sitting around the table – twelve of them, ranging in age from about sixteen to six. Fiona recognized some of them from Miss Peregrine's descriptions, like Millard the invisible boy, who looked like clothes just sitting in the chair by themselves, and the twins in their strange white masks.

"Fiona, come have some breakfast before it gets cold," Miss Peregrine called, and Fiona crept out from behind the doorframe. She sat in the empty chair to Miss Peregrine's right. She kept her head down, spreading her napkin in her lap, as Miss Peregrine went on, "Children, this is Fiona, who's to be our new gardener." Fiona blushed, flattered and proud to be described as _the new gardener_. "I know most of you remember how nervous you were when you were new here, so I want you to all do your best to make Fiona feel welcome."

The other children all began talking then, introducing themselves and pointing out the sign they'd made the night before. It hung over the breakfast table: _Welcome, Fiona,_ surrounded by a border of flowers.

" _I_ drew the flowers," Bronwyn said proudly, pointing, "because they said flowers are your Peculiarity."

Hugh was very interested in Fiona's abilities. He was about her age, and his Peculiarity was being full of bees. An entire hive of bees lived inside his stomach, buzzing in and out of his mouth and always swarming around him.

"I hope you don't mind my bees," he said, when he introduced himself. He wore a netted beekeeper hat while he ate breakfast, to keep his bees from buzzing all over the food. "They never sting, unless you provoke them."

"I don't mind," Fiona said. "I like bees."

Hugh grinned at her. "I guess when you Peculiarity is flowers, you have to get used to them."

"Is it only flowers, Fiona?" Olive asked. "Or can you make any sort of plant grow?"

"I don't..." Fiona began, but she hesitated. She had never once tried talking about her ability to anybody. Daddy had told her not to tell anyone what she could do. Fiona glanced at Miss Peregrine, who nodded encouragingly. She went on, "I mean, I don't _make_ the plants grow. I just sort of... _ask_ them to grow, and they do."

Miss Peregrine gave her an approving smile. "That's quite proper," she said. "Manners are always the best way."

Fiona glanced through the window, out into the garden. She had never had a whole garden to herself before, and her head was fairly swimming with possibilities of what to grow first. As soon as they'd finished breakfast and cleared the table, Fiona rushed outside to the garden. Hugh followed her.

"My bees would love some new flowers to pollinate," he said, almost as excited as she was. "What are you going to grow first?"

Fiona was silent for a long moment, thinking that over. She knelt down and slowly sank her fingers into the cool, dark soil. Growing in a new garden was like meeting a new friend. She motioned for Hugh to come closer, and he knelt down close beside her, as if they were co-conspirators with some secret. His bees buzzed around their heads in a noisy cloud.

"I want the first thing I grow here to be something for Miss Peregrine," Fiona told Hugh. It was the best way that she could think of to thank Miss Peregrine for taking her in. "What do you think she would like?"

"Hm..." Hugh pursed his lips, then smiled. "I know! A tobacco plant!"

"A tobacco plant?"

"Yes, she smokes a tobacco pipe," Hugh explained, "but I think she has to get the tobacco for it from the market in town. I bet she'd like having some fresh from the garden. Can you grow it?"

Fiona grinned. Nobody but her father had ever seen her grow plants, and she suddenly felt like showing off a little bit. She stood up, tossed back her head, and closed her eyes. Growing was like casting a spell. She spread her arms out over the ground and said the words inside her head, asking the plant to grow, and after a moment, she heard Hugh whisper in an awed voice, "Blimey!" She opened her eyes and smiled proudly to see that where there had been only soil a moment ago, there was now a fine tobacco plant with wide-spreading leaves.

Miss Peregrine was quite pleased with it when they showed it to her later that morning. "Fiona grew it, Miss P, for your pipe," Hugh said.

"But it was Hugh's idea," Fiona continued, "and his bees pollinated the flowers."

"So really, it's from both of us," Hugh finished, as if the two of them had been finishing each other's sentences for years. And from then on, Fiona and Hugh were a pair, nearly always together.


	6. Blossom

Once again, thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed!

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Fiona blossomed in her new home, just like the flowers that soon covered the outside walls and filled the flowerbeds. She settled into her own room on her first day there. After they'd grown the tobacco plant for Miss Peregrine, Hugh said to her, "You know, there's an empty room near mine you could have. It's got a window with an oak tree right outside, and a view of the garden."

Fiona was so surprised that for a moment, she could only stare at him, speechless. That was _exactly_ what she had wanted – a room with a tree right outside the window, like her room in her old home with Daddy, and a view of her new garden. She almost wondered if Hugh had a second Peculiarity of reading minds.

She was closest with Hugh, but Fiona got along with all her new housemates. Claire and Bronwyn liked her because she grew daisies for them to link together into crowns and necklaces. Millard liked her because whenever he kicked his football up into a tree, she could bend the branches and get it down. Even stuck-up Horace liked her because she grew topiary bushes in the front garden, shaped like animals. The elephant was her favorite. "They do add quite an air of sophistication to this place," Horace said, and he liked to sit in their shade and read.

None of the other children liked the new abundance of vegetables at supper, but they didn't complain because now, after supper, there was always something good for dessert – cherry pie, apple crumb cake, peach crisp, blackberry cobbler, lemon tart, strawberries and cream.

Miss Peregrine could be very strict. Fiona supposed that she _had_ to be, with twelve Peculiar children to take care of. She had known of much smaller families in Trawsfynydd whose children were always squabbling. But there was never any squabbling in Miss Peregrine's house. She had no tolerance for fighting, or for tardiness. Fiona and the other children were to get up on time, have their beds made and be ready for breakfast on time. And Miss Peregrine had a second Peculiarity, Fiona discovered. She couldn't just turn into a bird; she could manipulate time, too. That meant she knew, without even having to think about it, exactly how long it would take for anybody to do anything.

Miss Peregrine was strict, but on the nights when Fiona had nightmares, she was nothing but tender. The nightmares about the Hollow hunting her through the forest were scary, but the worst ones were about Daddy. Those weren't even nightmares. They were happy dreams, that Daddy was still alive and he and Fiona were back in their old house in Trawsfynydd, together. When Fiona woke up from those dreams and remembered that he was dead, she cried like she would never stop.

But Miss Peregrine was always nearby whenever one her children needed her, almost as if by magic. One afternoon, Fiona had been climbing the cherry tree with Bronwyn, when the younger girl lost her footing and fell. And just then, from out of nowhere, a falcon flashed by – a blur of dark blue almost too fast to see – and Bronwyn had barely hit the ground before Miss Peregrine was there, picking her up and dusting her off, saying, "Are you all right, Bronwyn? My, what a tumble you took."

Sometimes, when Fiona woke up crying at night, Miss Peregrine was already there. But if she wasn't, it never took her long to get to Fiona's room. She would sit on the edge of her bed and hold Fiona in her lap, or pick her up and walk up and down the floor with her. Even on warm nights, Miss Peregrine's hands were always cool as they smoothed Fiona's disheveled hair and wiped her teary face.

"When will it stop hurting?" she asked one night, sobbing into the front of Miss Peregrine's dressing gown. Her words were almost unintelligible through her tears, but Miss Peregrine understood them.

"I wish I had answer to that, Fiona," Miss Peregrine answered. She sighed sadly, her black-rimmed eyes full of pity. "You'll probably hurt for a long time. Every day, it will get a little better, but you're always going to miss your father, and that's all right."

That made her feel better. She was always going to miss Daddy, because he deserved to always be missed.

Another night, Miss Peregrine picked her up and carried her downstairs to the library. She went along the shelves until she pulled out a book and held it out to Fiona. Curious, Fiona lifted her head from Miss Peregrine's shoulder and took it. She flipped it open and found blank, lined pages.

"It-it's empty," she said, still sniffling.

"I want you to try writing in it," Miss Peregrine said. "You can pretend you're writing to your father, and tell him about your life here. I think it will help you."

Fiona said nothing, but _she_ didn't think it would help. The next evening, before bedtime, she sat at her desk and stared at the empty page, chewing on her pen and trying to figure out what to write. Then she remembered Miss Peregrine's words, the ones that had brought her so much comfort.

 _Dear Daddy, I'm always going to miss you._

After that, everything else flowed quite naturally, and from then on, she wrote letters to her father almost every day. She wrote him all about her new life, about Miss Peregrine and the other children, and their Peculiarities. She wrote him things that she couldn't tell anyone else.

 _Dear Daddy,_ she wrote one night, _did you know, I always know when Hugh is coming, because I can hear his bees buzzing before I can see him._

A few days later: _Daddy, don't tell anyone, but I think I'm in love with Hugh. And I think he loves me, too – and not just because I can grow flowers for his bees. I think he loves_ me.

 _I just wish I knew for sure._


	7. Hugh

Since this story has been focused on Fiona, I thought it would be fun to write a chapter about Hugh. Hope you enjoy!

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Age divided the floors in Miss Peregrine's house. The younger children – Claire, Bronwyn, the twins, Fiona, Hugh, and Millard – all had rooms on the second floor, while the older children – Emma, Olive, Enoch, Abe, Victor, and Horace – lived on the third floor, although Enoch spent much of his time in the attic, bringing his dolls and puppets to life and then killing them, like some sort of sulky teenage demigod. Enoch was always moody – Miss Peregrine said teenagers were like that – but Victor and Abe were usually kind. Late one afternoon, while Fiona was busy growing vegetables for supper in her garden, Hugh climbed the stairs to the third floor in search of them.

Victor and Abe were both in Abe's room, sprawled on the floor, talking and playing poker. Hugh peered in and knocked on the half-open door.

"Want to play poker with us, Hugh?" Abe offered, waving him in. "We could deal you in on the next hand."

Hugh shook his head sat down the floor beside them. "I sort of need some advice. I need to know how..." he hesitated, then took and deep breath and blurted out, before he could lose his nerve, "How do you tell a girl you fancy her?"

Victor laughed, but not in a mean way. "Aren't you a little young to already be having a sweetheart, Hugh?" he teased.

"Give her some nice flowers," Abe said, rearranging the cards in his hand. "Flowers are always a good bet with girls."

Hugh couldn't help groaning. _Flowers._ He had been afraid of that answer. At his groan, Abe and Victor glanced at each other, and Hugh could see the pieces falling into place for them. Why would the suggestion of giving a girl flowers make him unhappy, unless...

"O-ho!" Abe said, a sly grin spreading on his face. "So _Fiona_ is the girl you fancy?"

Hugh blushed. He had hoped that they won't figure it out. To hide his embarrassment, he put on a big show of acting annoyed. "I can't give _flowers_ to Fiona!" he burst out, waving one arm. "I would feel too stupid, like... like if I was giving Olive a box of matches!"

Victor chuckled. "You're right about that," he said, setting down his cards. "Flowers wouldn't do for Fiona. Let's see, what else do girls like? Chocolates?"

Hugh shook his head. He'd thought about giving her chocolate or candy, but Fiona didn't have much of a sweet tooth – because of her Peculiarity, he supposed. Vegetables must taste better when you grew them yourself, judging by the way she ate them.

"I know!" Abe said suddenly, snapping his fingers. He stood up and went to his bookcase. "I know just what you need. Poetry."

"Poetry?" Victor repeated, looking doubtful.

Abe was perusing the titles on his bookshelf. He didn't read as much as Horace, but the books that he did read, he liked. His favorite was a collection of poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson that he often carried around the house with him. Hugh recognized the cover as Abe pulled it off the shelf, then put it back.

"No, Emerson would be over your heads, I think... let's see..." He paused and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe Dickinson would be better..."

Hugh got up and joined him at the bookshelf. "Who?"

"Emily Dickinson," Abe explained. "She was an American poet, sort of similar to Emerson, but not so... heavy. I haven't got any of her stuff here, but there's a collection by her down in the library. She wrote a lot about nature – _flowers and bees_ ," he said pointedly, nudging Hugh's shoulder and grinning. "She'd be perfect for you and Fiona."

Victor scoffed, got up, and joined them at the bookcase. "You want _my_ advice, Hugh?" he asked, coming to stand on the other side of him. "If you want Fiona to know you fancy her, you've got to kiss her."

" _Kiss her_?" Hugh repeated. His throat suddenly felt dry. The idea of kissing Fiona was almost as scary as facing down a Hollow. Maybe his bees would fly out his mouth and ruin the moment. Maybe he would miss her cheek completely and kiss her braid instead. Or maybe he would do it right, but she wouldn't _want_ him to kiss her at all. Either way, he would mess it up somehow, he was sure, and Fiona would end up hating him. He stammered, "I can't... I mean, I don't think..."

Victor put one arm around his shoulders, encouragingly. "Don't think about it, Hugh," he said. "Just do it. When the time is right, you'll know."

But Hugh wasn't so sure. That night, he got up out of bed, opened his mouth wide, and let all his bees out. They swarmed around him, forming a little beard of bees on his chin, and around the potted flowers that Fiona had given him for his windowsill. "What do you lot think I should do?" he asked them. "Do you think I should kiss Fiona?"

His bees were just ordinary honeybees, so they didn't answer him, of course, but Hugh didn't mind that. Just the sound of their buzzing was a comfort; it was the most familiar sound in the world to him, like his own breath. His little one-winged bee perched on his finger, and Hugh smiled. He looked at the wall and thought about Fiona sleeping on the other side of it. Sometimes, she had bad dreams at night – Hugh would hear her crying and hear Miss Peregrine going in to her – but tonight, she seemed to be sleeping soundly.

There was a soft knock on his door. "Hugh, what are you doing up?" Miss Peregrine asked, sticking her head in. "It's late."

"I was just going back to sleep, Miss P," Hugh said, climbing into bed again. "I had to get up to let my bees out for a minute."

She nodded and started to go, but he called, "Miss P?" and she came back. He hesitated, then whispered, "Why does Fiona get so sad at night?"

Miss Peregrine sighed and came in to sit on the edge of his bed. "She misses her father."

Hugh sighed, too. He and his housemates had each come to Miss Peregrine from sad circumstances. The only one of them who didn't have unhappy memories was Claire, and that was only because she'd been with Miss Peregrine since she was a baby. Miss Peregrine had taken Hugh in from another ymbryne, Miss Sparrow, after her home was raided by a Hollow. Miss Sparrow had managed to get most of them to safety, but two children, younger than Hugh, had been eaten by the Hollow. Hugh hadn't seen it happen, but he'd heard them screaming as he ran away. The memory of it made him shudder and draw closer to Miss Peregrine on the bed. She put one hand on his head, and he felt safe again. He yawned hugely, and all his bees came flying back inside him.

"I think you're a great help to Fiona, Hugh," she said quietly, "just by being a good friend to her."

Hugh smiled and soon drifted off to sleep, even though he wasn't any closer to deciding whether he should kiss Fiona.


	8. Belonging

I've delayed in posting this chapter because I wanted to get the ending perfect. Thanks so much to everyone who's read and reviewed this story. One free review to the first person who can tell me where I stole Fiona's song from - but no cheating!

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Fiona turned and smiled at Hugh as his head poked up between the leaves of the apple tree. She was sitting on a low branch, growing apples for dessert that evening, and as she always did when Hugh came close to her, she had heard his bees buzzing before she could see him. He looked at her, and at first, she thought she only imagined the disappointed look on his face. But then he muttered, "Bullocks."

Fiona lowered one hand that she'd extended to grow apples. "What's wrong?"

Hugh looked sheepish, then said, "Well, I keep trying to hear that song you sing when you're growing things, but you always stop whenever I get near enough."

Fiona blushed. She often sang the same song softly to herself whenever she was growing plants, but she hadn't thought that anyone had noticed. "My daddy taught it to me," she said slowly, remembering how the words had sounded in his deep voice. "I don't know where he learned it. It's about a man who had an apple orchard."

"Will you teach it to me?" Hugh asked. "Please? I want to hear you sing it properly."

Fiona hesitated, biting her lip. She felt too shy to sing in front of Hugh, but just then, a little breeze blew, and the leaves of the apple tree all rustled around them, as if they were encouraging her. For a moment, Fiona remembered those sad, lonely days in the forest before Miss Peregrine found her, when the leaves and plants were her only company. She could never have imagined, back then, living here in Miss Peregrine's fine house and having so many friends.

Suddenly, her nerves vanished, and she smiled at Hugh. "All right," she agreed and softly, she began to sing. " _I owe the Lord so much, for everything I see. I'm certain if it weren't for Him, there'd be no apples on this limb. Yes, He's been good to me_."

Hugh grinned back at her. "Blimey, that's perfect for being in an apple tree," he said, and they sang it together. When they reached the end, Hugh found that Victor's words had come true. The time was right, and Hugh knew it, and without thinking, he leaned forward on the branch and kissed Fiona on the cheek.

When he pulled back from her, she was giggling, and he worried for a second that she was laughing at him. But then she said, "I could feel your bees buzzing. It tickled."

Hugh's worries vanished, and he grinned so wide that his face hurt. There was a strange, wonderful surge of excitement in his chest like he'd never felt before. He had done it. He had kissed Fiona, and she had liked it. "I guess it must feel funny to you," he managed to say. "I'm so used to them, I don't notice it anymore."

Fiona smiled and slowly reached out and picked an apple from a leafy branch over their heads. But as she handed it to Hugh, he saw that it wasn't an ordinary apple. She had used her Peculiarity to make it shaped like a heart. He held it reverently between his hands, as if it were something very precious. "Blimey," he whispered, "I'll never bring myself to eat this."

It felt so private up in the apple tree, with the sunlit green branches like a curtain around them, that they both had a rude shock when suddenly, Millard's voice came from quite nearby.

"Ooh, Hugh and Fiona are in lo-ove," he jeered, teasing.

Hugh's face burned, embarrassed and angry, and whipped his head around, looking for Millard's clothes, but Millard must have taken them off. He did that sometimes, even though Miss Peregrine was always telling him that "polite persons do not go about in the nude to spy on their housemates."

"Millard, shut up!" Hugh yelled, as Millard began making kissing noises. He took a deep breath, preparing to open his mouth and sic his bees on Millard, but Fiona was faster. She picked another apple, made it grow bigger, and threw it hard in the direction of Millard's voice. They heard it connect, and then a series of _ow_ 's and _oof_ 's as he fell to the ground.

Emma and Abe were approaching, on their way back to the house after returning the baby squirrel to its nest, and they heard him grunting. "Is that you, Millard?" Emma asked, her eyes searching the empty space under the tree. "Where are your clothes?"

Hugh quickly began climbing down the tree, not wanting to give Millard a chance to say that he'd just seen him kiss Fiona. "He took them off to spy on us again!" he called to Emma.

"Hugh and Fiona pushed me out of the tree!" Millard countered, hoping to get them in trouble, too.

Abe shook his head and muttered something in Polish. "Millard, if you're _meshuga_ enough to climb a tree naked, you deserve what you get."

Hugh and Fiona giggled at this, their hands over their mouths. They had both climbed down from the tree now, and Emma and Abe had reached the bottom of it. "But really, are you all right?" Abe asked the empty space where Millard was, and he mumbled an embarrassed "Yeah, fine."

"Come on, then," Emma said, smiling gently, "let's go in and get ready for supper."

Abe picked up the basket of apples that Fiona had picked and fell into step beside Emma as they walked to the house. His free hand took hold of hers – it was a well-known secret in their house that Emma and Abe were sweet on each other – and Hugh copied the gesture with Fiona. She smiled at him, and as they went inside, the last words of her father's song played again inside her head, and she understood, in a new way, that they were true.

 _Yes, He's been good to me_.

 **The End**


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